Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Saints

salvation, I seek out diverse remedies for the diverse infirmities of [your] ways. What does it profit if you are willing neither to betray the fortress nor to desert it, but remain in it sluggish and slothful? With all our heart, then, with all our strength, beloved, let us labour to hold in hand the fortress of our Lord and King entrusted to us, watchful against all the enemy's wiles and ready against all his engines, as it is written: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (Jas. 4:7). But since we know by whom it was said: Unless the Lord guard the city, he watches in vain who guards it (Ps. 126:1), let us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of the Most High, committing both ourselves and this house with all devotion to His mercy, that He Himself may guard us from all the snares of all our enemies, to the praise and glory of His name, which is blessed for ever. Amen.

SERMON IV. On the threefold dwelling.

1. With votive praises we celebrate this day, and we honour it with festive joys. But since it neither befits religious men, nor becomes the wise, to be ignorant of what they venerate or to celebrate what they do not know, we must ask in whose commemoration this is done, or in the commemoration of which saints. Yet I do not think I should presume to settle this of myself: let another speak first, whose testimony is greater and seems more credible. You wonder perhaps why we say this by way of preface, when the church here present, whose anniversary of dedication is being celebrated, presses it more plainly upon your eyes. For why should we be afraid to call its walls holy, which the consecrated hands of bishops have sanctified with such great mysteries? From that time on, too, the frequent sound of holy readings is known to ring out there, the devout whispers of holy prayers to murmur, the blessed presence of holy relics to be honoured, the untiring guard of holy spirits to keep watch. You will say perhaps: The rest are evident; but who boasts that he has seen the angelic watches? Even if perhaps you do not see, yet there is One who sees, He who sends them. Who is He? Surely He who speaks through the prophet: Upon your walls, Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen (Isa. 62:6). There is indeed the Jerusalem above, which is free, our mother; but I should hardly believe that watchmen have been appointed upon her walls, in whose praise the Prophet sings: Who has made your borders peace (Ps. 147:14). But if you think that of little weight, go on to hear what follows in the testimony just cited: All the day, he says, and all the night, for ever they shall not be silent (Isa. 62:6). For this at least may be noted, that this is not the Jerusalem of which you have read: Her gates shall not be shut by day; for there shall be no night there (Rev. 21:25). That Jerusalem, then, suffers no changes and needs no watchmen: rather it is to ours that watchmen must be assigned by day and by night. Upon your walls, Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen.

2. Thou art kind, O Lord, and canst not be content with this frail protection of our walls, but

Thou settest an angelic guard as well over the very men who are set over men, that they may defend both the walls and those who are enclosed within the circuit of the walls. Yes, Father, for so it has pleased Thee, so it is necessary for us. For our ministry is insufficient unless Thou send those ministering spirits to serve with us and for us, that we may take hold of the inheritance of salvation. For what if we do not see their service, when we experience their help? What if we do not merit the sight of them, when we feel the effect? We learn surely from this very thing, if from nothing else, that things invisible are to be preferred to things visible. For the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). Indeed, the cause of things visible lies in things invisible, so that, according to the Apostle, the invisible things of God are clearly seen by the visible creature, being understood through the things that are made (Rom. 1:20). So it was that once, when the Jews blasphemed the Holy One of God concerning the invisible forgiveness of sins, He refuted them by the visible sign of bodily healing: That you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins (then He said to the paralytic): Rise, take up your bed, and go into your house (Mark 2:10).

3. So too He refuted with manifest proofs that Pharisee who murmured against the physician working salvation and was angry with the sick woman who was being saved, recounting the woman's acts of service. For he was in error who shrank from her as though she were still a sinner, she who, clinging to the divine footsteps, watered them with tears, wiped them with her hair, pressed them with a kiss, anointed them with ointment. For who would rehearse crimes already blotted out, who would be angry with her for touching, who would reckon her a sinner, who, while she bewails what she has committed, hates iniquity; while she kisses the Lord's feet, loves justice; and again, while she wipes them with her hair, shows humility; while she anoints them with ointment, displays gentleness? Is it possible for sin to reign in a contrite mind and a groaning spirit, or does not much charity cover a multitude of sins? Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much (Luke 7:38–47). Rightly, then, she will no longer be called a sinner according to your judgement, Pharisee, but a holy disciple of Christ, from whom she learned even in so short a time to be meek and humble of heart. This, surely, is what you read in the prophet, but perhaps neglected: Turn the wicked, and they shall not be (Prov. 12:7). So, dearest brethren, so too, if that ancient accuser of the brethren should reproach you with your past sins, at which you yourselves also blush, hear the Apostle magnificently consoling you and saying: Such indeed you were, but you have been washed, but you have been sanctified (1 Cor. 6:11); and this: You have now your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, life everlasting (Rom. 6:22); and, expressing it more plainly: The temple of God, he says, is holy, which you are (1 Cor. 3:17).

4. Surely it is He for whose reverence, at the

beginning of this sermon, we reserved the first word, while we were asking after the saints in whose holiness we rejoice with solemn devotion. For although the consecration by the bishops, the frequent reading of the Scriptures, constancy in prayers, the relics of the saints and the visits of angels make these walls both to be called holy and to be holy, yet it is by no means to be believed that their holiness is honoured for their own sake, since it is certain that they are not sanctified for their own sake either. Rather, the house is holy because of the bodies, the bodies because of the souls, the souls because of the Spirit who dwells in them. Nor let anyone doubt of this, since a visible sign of His invisible grace is given us for our good. I mean in this: that you yourselves, like that paralytic of the Gospel, rise up; that you take up so easily this bodily bed on which you lay sick; that, finally, you walk into your house, that house surely in which you rejoice, saying with the Prophet: We will go into the house of the Lord (Ps. 121:1). O wonderful house, to be preferred both to the beloved tabernacles and to the longed-for courts! How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. But much more: Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house, O Lord; they shall praise Thee for ever and ever (Ps. 83:2, 5). For glorious things are said of you, O city of God. In the tabernacles there is the groaning of penance, in the courts the taste of joy, in you the fullness of glory. This indeed is the lowest house, the house of prayer; the middle one is the house of expectation; you, the house of thanksgiving and praise. Happy, then, is he who here has turned away from evil, which is guilt, and done good: that there he may be freed from evil, which is punishment, and in you receive good. Here, surely, are the firstfruits of the Spirit, there the riches, in you the fullness: where that good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, shall be given into our bosom. Here, in short, men are made holy, there secure, in you blessed. These are the firstfruits of the Spirit bestowed meanwhile on those who serve in the war: holiness in manner of life, devotion in intention, strength in the struggle. By holiness of life understand the fruits of penance and all the bodily exercises of the divine commandments. And since these cannot be single unless the eye is single, devotion of intention and purity of heart are of necessity required, lest either ambition for honour or appetite for praise creep in: but that He alone be desired who alone fills desire, and that all the grace we have received return to the source of its own fountain. Remember, however, that of all of them perseverance alone is crowned, and that it cannot easily be made good amid so many perils unless you obtain manifold strength in so manifold a struggle. So much for the tabernacles.

5. Further, in the courts, which receive those who depart, to be cherished with pleasant delight after their troublesome conflicts, the riches of the Spirit are now bestowed: rest from labours, security from cares, peace from enemies. For from henceforth now, says the Spirit Himself, that they may rest

from their labours, He who with such fervour has hitherto been accustomed to forbid leisure and to enjoin labours. He Himself will set [the soul] apart from cares and will sequester it from all anxiety, He who now places counsels in its soul and makes it anxious and troubled about many things. He Himself, the victory now won, will grant it to sleep sweetly in peace in the selfsame, He who, while the lion still roars and growls, rouses it to vigils and girds it for the fight. But in these things, as we touched on above, there is deliverance from evil rather than the bestowal of good: except that the hard experience of our need compels us to reckon the absence of evil as heaps of good; just as a conscience reckons immunity from the graver crimes as the fullness of holiness. From this one may notice how far we live from the highest good, we who judge being without fault to be justice, and being without misery to be beatitude.

6. But far be it that anyone should think the abundance of that house, and the torrent of pleasure, and whatever other things there are which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love Him, to be such as this! Do not wish, then, O man, to hear what the ear of man has not heard; nor seek from man what neither human eye sees nor mind grasps. Yet, that we may not be wholly silent on this, greeting this our homeland from afar, we seem to scent a kind of threefold promise: of power, namely, and of magnificence, and of glory. For he was a man and a son of this captivity who said: I will go in unto the powers of the Lord (Ps. 70:16). For the rest, we can know what it is to be without weakness, since we are surrounded by weakness; but what it is to be clothed with strength, and to enter into power, and not only power, but great power, perhaps even omnipotence, we cannot know for the present. The faithful witness cries out too, that those whom He justified, them He also magnified (Rom. 8:30). But magnificence, above all that which it befits to proceed from a greatness of which there is neither end nor number, would that our littleness might meanwhile be permitted to await; for to estimate it is not permitted. And now there is no need to fear even this, or to hold suspect the promise of glory: then you will drink in glory happily and confidently, from the desire of which you are meanwhile deterred by so many threats. For then each one will have praise from God, secure indeed and everlasting, free alike of end and of danger; and, as it is written: Pleasant and comely praise (Ps. 146:1). Come then, brethren, let us for the present soldier manfully in the tents, that we may afterwards rest sweetly in the courts, that at the last we may glory sublimely in the house, when this momentary and light [burden] of our tribulation shall work in us, beyond measure into the heights, an eternal weight of glory, when in the Lord we shall be praised all the day long, in truth assuredly, not in vanity.

SERMON V. On the Twofold Consideration of Oneself.

1. Today too, brethren, we keep a most glorious solemnity. And this indeed I might easily say: but if

you go on to ask of which saint, that perhaps is no longer so. For whenever the memory of some apostle, or martyr, or confessor is celebrated, it is not hard to say whose, as for instance of St Peter, and of glorious Stephen, or of our holy Father Benedict, or of any other of the great princes of the great court of heaven. But now the solemnity of none of them is kept; yet a certain solemnity is kept. And not merely a certain one, but no small one. And if you wish to hear it now, it is the festival of the house of the Lord, of the temple of God, of the city of the eternal king, of the bride of Christ. No one indeed doubts that the bride of the Holy of holies is holy, and most worthy of every honour of celebration. Or who would doubt that the house of God is holy, of which we read: Holiness befits Thy house? (Ps. 92:5.) So too His temple is holy, wonderful in equity (Ps. 64:5–6); and John testifies that he saw the holy city as well: I saw, he says, the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2). In these words indeed I have already begun to disclose what, I confess, I still wished to keep hidden. I say, then, that the same bride who is the city is also the temple too, and no less the house. Nor is this surprising, especially since likewise it is One who deigns to show Himself to her as bridegroom, and king, and God, and father of the household.

Yet I think you are not yet satisfied until you learn more clearly what house of this father of the household, what this temple of God, what city of this king, what bride, finally, of so glorious a bridegroom has deserved to be called and to be such [alias: hear]. But I am not a little afraid to say what I think on this, lest it befall any of you, which God forbid!, to hear it either less faithfully or less humbly: lest perhaps someone go out from this hearing either puffed up by the greatness of the glory, or unbelieving through faintness of spirit. For I wish you always to be found both faithful and humble, since both are supremely necessary for salvation. For He gives grace to the humble alone, Whom also without faith it is impossible to please. I wish, then, and desire in every way that you take care to present yourselves to Him both as little ones and as great, nay, that you may wonder the more, both as nothing and as something, even something great [alias: nothing other than something great]. For without a great spirit you will not be able to grasp those goods so great, or to do violence to the kingdom of heaven: no more than you will be able to enter that same kingdom of heaven, unless you are converted and become as little children (Matt. 18:3). I am not a man of deep understanding, nor can I pour forth to you what I have not tasted. Yet I will say what I sometimes feel being worked in me, so that if anyone perhaps judges it useful to himself, he may imitate it. For since I was long ago persuaded to have pity on my soul, so as thenceforth to please my God (Sir. 30:24), I often reflect upon it: would that I might do so once, and always [alias: rather always]! There was a time when it little pleased me to have this worked, namely because less (if indeed less, and not

rather not at all) I loved it. For how does anyone love that whose death he loves? But if, as is true and beyond doubt, the death of the soul is iniquity, it is plainly an absolute sentence that he who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Ps. 10:6). I hated it, therefore, and would hate it still, had not He who first loved it bestowed on me this beginning, such as it is, of love for it.

3. By His kindness, then, thinking of it sometimes, I seem to myself, I confess, to find in it as it were two things contrary to each other. If I look at it as it is in itself and of itself, according to the truth of the matter, I can think nothing truer of it than that it has been brought to nothing. What need is there now to number its miseries one by one: how it is laden with sins, overspread with darkness, ensnared by allurements, itching with concupiscences, subject to passions, filled with illusions, ever prone to evil, inclined to every vice, and lastly full of all confusion and ignominy? Surely, if even all our justices, examined in the light of truth, are found to be like a menstruous rag (Isa. 64:6), what then will our injustices be reckoned? If the light that is in us is darkness, how great will the darkness itself be? It is easy for each of us, if he search out all that is his more fully [alias: better] and without dissembling, and judge without respect of person, to bear witness in all things to the apostolic truth and to proclaim freely: He who thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceives himself (Gal. 6:3). What is man, that Thou magnifiest him? says a faithful and devout confession; or why dost Thou set Thy heart upon him (Job 7:17)? What then? Without doubt man has become like to vanity, man has been brought to nothing, man is nothing. Yet how is he wholly nothing, whom God magnifies? How is he nothing, upon whom the divine heart has been set?

4. Let us breathe again, brethren: even if we are nothing in our own hearts, perhaps in the heart of God something else concerning us may lie hidden. O Father of mercies! O Father of the wretched! Why dost Thou set Thy heart upon them? I know, I know: where Thy treasure is, there is Thy heart. How then are we nothing, if we are Thy treasure? All nations are before Thee as if they were not, and they shall be reckoned as nothing and void. Before Thee, indeed, but not so within Thee. So in the judgement of Thy truth, but not so in the affection of Thy loving-kindness. Truly, Thou callest the things that are not as the things that are. And so they are not, since Thou callest things that are not; and they are, since Thou callest them. For though they are not as regards themselves, yet with Thee they are, assuredly, according to the Apostle, not from works of justice, but from Him who calls (Rom. 9:12). Thus truly, thus dost Thou console in Thy loving-kindness the one whom Thou hast humbled in Thy truth, that he who is rightly straitened in his own bowels may be magnificently enlarged in Thine. For all Thy ways are mercy and truth to those who seek Thy covenant and Thy testimonies (Ps. 24:10): the covenant, assuredly, of loving-kindness, and the testimonies of truth.

5. Read, O man, in your own heart: read within yourself

testimonies of the truth concerning yourself: even by this common light you will judge yourself unworthy. Read in the heart of God the testament which has been confirmed in the blood of the Mediator: and you will find how far other is what you possess in hope from what you seem to hold in fact. What is man, he says, that Thou magnifiest him? Great indeed, but in Him: for he has been magnified by Him. Or how is he not great with Him, Who has so great a care for him? For He has care of us, says the apostle Peter (1 Pet. 5:7). And the Prophet: But I am a beggar and poor; the Lord is careful for me (Ps. 39:18). Plainly a skilful joining of both considerations, by which, as it were in one moment descending and ascending alike, he saw both himself poor and a beggar, and God careful on his behalf. This is an angelic thing, to ascend and descend at once. You shall see, He says, the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man (John 1:51). For there is no such alternation in their ascendings and descendings. They are at once sent to minister for the sake of those who receive the inheritance of salvation, and stand before the face of the majesty: God mercifully providing that there should be both consolation for us and no tribulation for them. Otherwise, when would they bear with equanimity being separated, even for a little, from that face of glory into which they ever desire to look, for our sake? Hear, finally, the Truth Himself in the Gospel. Their angels, He says, of the little ones without doubt, always see the face of the Father in heaven (Matt. 18:10); deputed, that is, to the guarding of the little ones in such a way as not to be deprived in any manner of their own beatitude. Hence it is that holy John saw the city Jerusalem descending; standing he could not behold it. And notice that he said descending, not falling. For once no small part of that city fell, but that part indeed least holy, for which the gravest fall was this, that it became the enemy of all holiness.

6. But this ruin and terrible fall John indeed could not see, because it was not yet; but he saw the Word that was in the beginning, he saw the Beginning Who spoke to the apostles: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven (Luke 10:18). And so that part which fell is to be repaired by God, when He shall fill up the ruins and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, yet not from those who fell. But this [city] which appeared descending was already prepared, as he added next: Prepared by God (Rev. 21:2). For it is the divine preparation that makes the holy angels descend and not fall; by which, surely, both this very will and the power have been prepared for them. Hence the Apostle too testifies that they are not only ministering, but also sent to minister (Heb. 1:14). Why should He not send angels, for whom He Himself was willing to be sent by the Father? Why should He not bow the heavens for them, for whom He Himself too, the King of the heavens, bowed Himself down, so as to write with His finger on the ground? (John 8:6.) Lord, bow Thy heavens (that is little), and come down (Ps. 143:5). What more? That those to whom He condescends He may also make to ascend with Him. But, as we have already said, the angelic

ascent and descent is without alternation: but we must turn now this way, now that, since it is neither permitted to stay longer above, nor expedient to linger longer below. They go up, he says, even to the heavens, and they go down even to the depths: their soul pined away in evils (Ps. 106:26). Why is this? Truly their soul for the present pines away in evils more than it delights in goods for this reason, that the former are seen to be possessed in fact, the latter only in hope. Who can be saved? say the disciples to the Saviour. And He: With men this is impossible, but not with God (Matt. 19:25–26). This is our whole confidence, this our only consolation, this the whole ground of our hope.

7. But being now certain about the possibility, what do we do about the will? Who knows whether he is worthy of love or of hatred? Who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor? (Rom. 11:34.) Here now faith must plainly come to our aid; here the truth [alias: loving-kindness] must succour us: so that what lies hidden concerning us in the heart of the Father may be revealed to us through His Spirit, and His Spirit, bearing witness, may persuade our spirit that we are sons of God. And may He persuade us by calling and by justifying freely through faith, in which there is, surely, as it were a middle passage from eternal predestination to the future magnification. For this reason indeed we believe that the one of that twofold consideration is not unfittingly called [the consideration] of judgement and truth, and the other of faith and loving-kindness. Nor will you wonder that things so unlike are found in human qualities, if you notice carefully how great a diversity of natures is seen to have come together in man's very substance. For what is more sublime than the spirit of life? and what more lowly than the slime of the earth? This coherence in man of things so incoherent did not, I think, escape even the wise of this world, when they defined man as a rational mortal animal. A wonderful coupling indeed of reason and death, a wonderful fellowship of discernment and corruption. So truly, so in the conduct, so in the affections, so in the pursuits of men no less, perhaps even greater, contrariety is found: so that if you look at the whole littleness by itself, as it is, and again consider one by one whatever good seems to be in it, you would judge it full of wonder that things so opposed have come together. Hence a man deserves to hear himself called now Bar-Jona, now Satan. Do not wonder at this. Recall from the Gospel to whom it was said (and both in truth, for both were said by the Truth Himself) first: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona; and not long after: Get behind me, Satan. One man, therefore, was both, though not both from one source. For the former was from the Father, the latter from man; yet he himself was both. Whence Bar-Jona? Because not flesh and blood, but the Father revealed to him what he spoke. Whence Satan? Because he savoured the things that are of men, not those of God (Matt. 16:17, 23). Now if by both considerations we have diligently looked into what we are, nay rather, in the one, how nothing, in the other, how magnified: since for us so great a majesty bears even solicitude, and His heart has appeared set towards

us: our glorying seems, I think, tempered, but perhaps it is rather increased, yet made solid, so that we glory not in ourselves but in the Lord; for us, surely, there is breathing-room only in this, that we may say: If He has decreed to save us, we shall forthwith be set free.

8. From this, now lingering even a little on that higher watch-tower, let us seek the house of God, let us seek the temple, let us seek the city, let us seek also the bride. For I have not forgotten, but with fear and reverence I say: we are [these]. We, I say, are, but in the heart of God; we are, but by His condescension, not by our own dignity. Let not man usurp what is God's, so that he presume to magnify himself: otherwise God, doing what was His own, will humble him who exalts himself. Wherefore, if in childish wilfulness we wish to be saved without cost, we are rightly not saved. The dissembling of misery shuts out mercy, nor has condescension any place where there is presumption of dignity: but the humble confession of suffering calls forth compassion. Truly this alone brings it about that He, as a rich father of the household, feeds us in famine, and under Him we are found abounding in bread. Hence [we are] His house, in which the food of life is never lacking. And remember that He defines His house as a house of prayer (Matt. 21:13); for this too seems to agree well enough with the prophetic testimony which declares that we are to be fed by Him, in prayers assuredly, with the bread of tears, and are to receive drink in tears (Ps. 79:6). But according to the same Prophet, as we also recalled above, holiness befits this house (Ps. 92:5): so that, namely, the purity of continence may accompany the tears of penitence, and that which is already a house may then become also a temple of God. Be holy, He says, for I the Lord your God am holy (Lev. 11:44). And [the word] of the apostles: Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you? If anyone violates the temple of God, God will destroy him (1 Cor. 3:16–17).

9. Yet is even holiness itself now enough? Peace too is necessary, as the Apostle witnesses, who says: Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will see God (Heb. 12:14). It is this that makes brethren of one manner to dwell together in one, building assuredly for our King, the true Peacemaker, a new city, which itself also is to be named Jerusalem, that is, vision of peace. For where a headless multitude has been gathered without a covenant of peace, without observance of law, without discipline and governance, it is called not a people but a mob: it is not a city but confusion; it shows forth Babylon and has nothing of Jerusalem. But how will it seem possible that so great a king should pass over into a bridegroom, and a city be promoted to a bride? This only she can do who can do all things, charity strong as death. How should she not easily raise up this one, she who has already bowed down that One? But here you must by no means consult that first consideration of yourself which we spoke of: here above all the magnanimity of faith is exercised. And so He Himself says: I have espoused you to Me in faith, I have espoused you in judgement and justice (understand His, not yours), I have espoused you in mercy and compassion